This game is beautiful, but somehow, it tries to chew a bit much. The combat system is a bit weird, all those "big feelings" rolling around on every scene where everybody is wearing the bare minimal (high fan service notes here!) feels out of place.
It bets a lot on formulas perfected by games like OdinSphere and ValkyrieProfile, but, in my opinion, does not deliver. This is probably a great acquisition for someone that enjoyed the first game. I could get the first one and give it a go, but just not worth the effort.

Overall:
+ great art
- poor gameplay
- poor storytelling

It is not a bad game, but for sure it is not a game for me.

Holy ♥♥♥♥ is this game a mess... I'm going to keep this short and sweet since I don't want to spend any more of my time with it.

First, graphically, as usual the bad platformer style games over-bloom the absolute living ♥♥♥♥ out of everything. I guess they think it looks good. Nope. It looks like ass and makes the production quality of your game look like it's trying to cheat its way to a higher perceived aesthetic quality. It's lazy at best and makes it openly admit to players they are limited on artistic skill at worst.

Second, the game is SERIOUS fan-service. It's like anything in any media; if it makes sense to have something there then ok, but to shoehorn stuff in just for the sake of satisfying some checklist only serves to showcase how little thought went into tying each mechanic, art choice, character personality, etc. together. Shoehorned stuff feels shoehorned and thus the complete opposite extreme of organic. The fan service in this game, to me, seems present so people will give the game a pass on the 1st graphical problem.

Third, the level layout. I don't even know where to begin to explain just how bad the first 20? 30? 40? screens were... You're about as weak as they come, rightfully so since you're just starting the game. Yet the platforming requirements are beyond absurd -- bouncing back and forth working your way up across gaps to get higher up in the room, while things spinning in the air and rotating around shooting things, and even trailing smaller things around them are all out trying to hit you while doing this. I'm sorry... Was this a rage game? Maybe I missed the tag... The beginning areas play like the final areas of a much better game and just serve to remind me how I wish I were playing a better game.

Fourth, during all the platforming, mentioned in the third problem, there's all this back and forth text showing up in the lower left of the screen that doesn't even have the damn courtesy to pause the game while you try to read it. I thought it was bad during the intro trying to keep up with the text that was basically shoving me before I finished reading the current line before it went on to the next. This is on a whole other level. With all this ♥♥♥♥ flying around coming at you while you're bouncing around like a pinball machine, you're expected to read this damn text that auto-progresses otherwise you'll miss out on, I'm guessing, explanations. Not that I can expect explanations to really be of any help considering the story is so friggen confusing in the first place.

Fifth and final point. This game feels like it's trying so hard to figure out what it is. Is it a platformer? Is it a Metroidvania? It presents itself like a Metroidvania, yet the game shows chapters numbers. I'm so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ confused. You even start with double-jump, dash, and being able to run up walls. Ok, so are we losing those later (ala Death in Symphony of the Night style)? Or are we just not providing abilities as progression gates that are a staple of the Metroidvania genre? So then what the ♥♥♥♥ is it? A platformer I guess? But there's leveling... lol I don't even know where to go with this, I'm just.,.. I'm just damn confused and tired of trying to wait for the game to explain itself.